


SPF-50 Recommended

by FollowerofMercy



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Cooking, Comedic Panic, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Loosely based on a true story, Mild Gore, Mild Language, Not Shippy, Papyrus has a cool car, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route, Rating: PG13, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Skelebros being bros, Sunburn, Taxidermy, Undertale Monsters on the Surface, Weird Biology, healthy sibling relationship, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 23:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15762315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FollowerofMercy/pseuds/FollowerofMercy
Summary: The Surface brings a slew of new challenges to monster kind. Papyrus and Sans discover something about themselves with much screaming, panic and brotherly love.





	SPF-50 Recommended

**Author's Note:**

> The true story this is based off of is in the end notes

Papyrus stared at the back of his brother’s skull, eyes bugging out of his sockets and mouth agape. They stood in the kitchen, where Sans had come in complaining from a nap.

“-it’s itchy? and hot? i dunno bro, what’d you think?”

Sans turned to face Papyrus, rubbing the uncomfortable, textured part of his head. He stopped short when he saw the expression on his brother’s face.

“holy shit what?”

“OH MY GOD.”

“what _?!”_

Papyrus grabbed the top of Sans’s head and turned it around, then used his phone to snap a picture.

“seriously, what is it?!” The corners of Sans’s mouth pulled down into the closest he could manage to a frown.

Papyrus released him without a word and handed him the phone. Sans’s eyelights shrank to pinpricks and a tic set in his left eyelid.

“oh my god.”

Papyrus let loose the brewing scream, nearly drowning out Sans’s panic.

“what is it?!?”

Sans gestured to the pitted surface of his skull, whiter and more porous that the rest of him. Papyrus paused his screaming.

“IS IT A RASH? IS IT ANYWHERE ELSE?”

“i-i dunno?”

“TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF!”

In his haste to pull off his greasy A-shirt, Sans guillotined himself and gagged when it jerked his chin up. Papyrus ‘helped’ when he decided it was taking too long and ripped it the rest of the way.

“OW! dude!”

“SORRY!” Papyrus manhandled Sans’s arms over his head and checked him for more mystery marks. “I DON’T SEE ANY ON YOUR RIBS.”

“whaddabout my back?”

Papyrus spun him around and twisted him to check every last spot, even checking underneath his scapulae.

“NO, NOTHING. WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF YOU?”

“uh,” Sans pulled his shorts forward with his back to Papyrus and gave himself a cursory check. “nothing at all there.”

Papyrus shoulder dropped onto the floor to check out his legs. Sans flinched when Papyrus shrieked, his shorts snapping back into place.

“THERE’S MORE!”

“where?!”

“YOUR FIBULA AND TIBIA!”

Papyrus rocked onto his knees and yanked Sans’s shorts down.

“hey!”

Papyrus was only down there for a second before he stood and put his pants back where they belonged.

“IT JUST… STOPS?! THERE’S A STRAIGHT LINE WHERE YOUR PANTS WERE.”

“seriously?”

Sans twisted so he could see the back of his calves, or tried to. He wasn’t quite as flexible as most people.

“YES, GO LAY DOWN AND LOOK!”

Sans teleported above the couch and fell into the cushions. Sitting down he could prop his leg on the arm of the couch and contort to see the rash, though his spine and hips protested. Loudly.

His breath caught in his chest when he saw the same warping from the picture on his bones, except not through the phone’s screen. He ran a thumb over the tender spot and let out a squeak when a small chip broke off.

“papyrus?!” his voiced pitched far higher than normal. Papyrus sprinted out of the kitchen to join him.

Omnipotent toddlers, bad science and the potential end of the world? He could handle that. Weird skin rashes? No. Nope. No way. A new brand of weird that he couldn’t cope with. This is how Sans the skeleton dies: slowly crumbling, afflicted by a mystery disease that would eat him from the outside in.

Was it contagious? Would he take out his brother in yet another colossal mistake? Was this the end?!

“I’M TAKING YOU TO THE HOSPITAL.”

Papyrus already had his keys in hand and sunglasses taped to his skull. He extended a hand to help his brother up, but Sans pulled away. “COME ON, LET’S GO!”

“no, uh, what if it spreads to you? isn't that how crap works?”

“IF I GET IT THEY CAN PROBABLY FIX IT. COME ON!”

He grabbed Sans’s arm, still not wearing a shirt, and dragged him out the door.

“wait, shit, lemme wash my hands or something! and i need ID!”

Papyrus let him go long enough to wash his hands, grab the sock that served as his wallet and throw on a shirt. Papyrus tapped his foot at the threshold and scratched his jaw, beads of sweat rolling down his temple.

“DO WE NEED AN APPOINTMENT TO GO TO AN ORTHOPEDIST?”

Sans popped his head through the arm hole of his shirt, swore and stumbled towards the door while he fumbled for the correct orientation. “uh, probably.”

Papyrus tutted and led him by the shoulder to the red convertible parked outside. They didn’t bother admiring the sunlight reflecting off the fresh wax, instead jogging to the vehicle and buckling in as fast as possible.

“WHAT ABOUT MADELINE?”

“you think she’d know?”

“PROBABLY? MAYBE?”

“can’t hurt, right? good thinking bro.”

Papyrus threw the car in reverse and backed out of the driveway, narrowly avoiding the neat piles of scrap and electronics stored in the yard, and sped down the road towards Madeline’s house.

 

***

 

Papyrus tucked Sans under his shoulder as soon as they arrived and sprinted to the ominous door. Lifelike animal sculptures littered the yard, mostly owls and coyotes, as well as an inexplicable tacky flamingo with a railroad spike in its head.

Papyrus banged on the door hard enough to echo through the normal-looking house.

“MADELINE!” he screamed. “WE NEED YOU!”

A grungy human woman answered the door. Papyrus stumbled to regain his balance when she jerked it open, careful not to drop his brother. She appraised them through smudged eyeliner.

“…K. Come in. I made brownies.”

She beckoned them through the entryway. Expert taxidermy and mounted animal skeletons surrounded them on all sides, in display cases, on shelves, hanging from the ceiling, everywhere.

Papyrus and Sans vibrated with anxiety in the living room while she brought out a platter of charred treats and set them down next to her latest project. She strolled over to them while chewing on a brownie, the faint smell of burnt chocolate drifting with her.

Papyrus thrust his brother at her.

“WHAT IS THIS?!”

“…That is a skeleton monster, male, approximately 30 pounds, age-”

“NO, WHAT IS THIS?!”

Papyrus let go of Sans, kept him afloat with blue magic and forced his head around. Madeline didn’t even blink.

“ow, dude, your thumb is IN my eye.”

“SORRY.” Papyrus adjusted his grip to something slightly less violating. “THIS! ON HIS HEAD! AND HIS LEGS!”

Papyrus rotated him midair and held his leg to Madeline. She hummed, pulled a flashlight out of her shirt and got to work. Sans drew his eyebrows together in a silent plea for comfort as she examined him, the corners of his smile warped into a grimace. Papyrus pat the uninjured part of Sans’s skull and squatted to get on eye level.

They heard a click as Madeline shut her flashlight off. Papyrus stepped back and released the blue magic, then pulled Sans into a tight hug while they waited for her diagnosis.

She yawned and scratched her jaw, bored expression on her face. “Looks bleached.”

“Bleached?” the brothers asked in unison.

“Happens when you leave bones out in the sun and wind too long. You go out somewhere for a long time?”

“uh… i took a friend to the beach and fell asleep… for a few hours. face-down.”

“You put on sunblock?”

“…no? why would i?”

“Guess it’s sunburn,” she shrugged and returned to the latest taxidermy spread on the table.

 

They stood in a stupor for a few moments.

“ARE YOU SERIOUS?!”

“ _sunburn?!_ ”

“Yeah,” she said. “Brownie?”

She held the plate out with one hand and a scalpel in the other. A shred of gore clung to the blade.

“S-SO HE’S OKAY? HE WON’T HAVE LASTING DAMAGE?!”

“Can’t say for certain, I don’t know monster bones, but probably. Worst case it’ll scar. Maybe have a higher risk of cancer.”

“what’s cancer?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Papyrus and Sans chuckled, then laughed, then sobbed hysterically.

“YOU’RE NOT DYING!”

“i'm not!”

“Yet,” Madeline muttered too quiet for them to hear.

Papyrus ran over and kissed Madeline platonically on the head. “OH THANK YOU THANK YOU!”

“No probs, Papy.” She mumbled around her brownie and swallowed. “Hey, can I get a few pics of the bleaching? For research.”

“why not. i have reason to live again.”

 

They left Madeline’s house with bellies full of brownie charcoal and significantly more inner peace. Papyrus used his scarf to shade Sans’s burnt head and put the roof up on the convertible as they drove home.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU GOT SUNBURNED.”

“i know right.”

“WILL YOU **EVER** BE RESPONSIBLE? YOU CAN’T EVEN PROTECT YOURSELF FROM THE SUN! IT’S ALWAYS THERE!”

“yeah, real _bone-head_ move. my bad.”

“NYEH. YOU’RE HALF- _BAKED.”_

Sans looked over at his cool brother, driving his dream car. He smiled and settled into his seat, exhausted from the emotional rush but secure knowing that his great brother had his back.

 

Sans went to bed that night with an inch of aloe paste smeared into his sunburns while Papyrus went out to buy an economy jar of sunblock.

They vowed that this would never happen again.

 

 

 

(It happened again.)

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so. My roommate was Indian. I am very white. We went to the beach and of course I got sunburned, because that's what white people do. It was itchy, and hot, and I wanted to know how bad I got burned to decide whether I should bother putting anything on it. Unfortunately my back got burned and I am not an owl. I got my roommate to take a look for me and give me a damage report. Now my sweet, wonderful roommate had never been sunburned before, or at least not badly.  
> She freaked the hell out.  
> It was great. 
> 
> "OH MY GOD IT'S SO RED! LIKE REALLY RED! Are you sure you're okay?!" - quote the roommate


End file.
